Mon Oct 18 2004 18:12 PST:
These crazy Texans have written software that maps a phylogenic tree onto a circle, the result resembling a cross-section of the trunk of a real tree. For maximum confusion, use this software to diagram the relationships between different types of tree. There's a monster PDF that shows a representative sample of all of life on a big circle. Excellent visualization, though I think it blurs the real distance between two arbitrary species. You think it's correlated to the distance between the two around the circle, when you actually have to go down the tree to find the common ancestor. Obvious application of this fallacy: unroll the circle, and you've got the Great Chain of Being.